


A Glass Divide

by ishery, thepottermalfoyproblem



Series: Cantilever [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, M/M, Other, Pining, Pre-OT3, Relationship Problems, domestic angst, during the ten years of darkness, one-sided promnis, toast-eating fuckups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 04:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10779621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishery/pseuds/ishery, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepottermalfoyproblem/pseuds/thepottermalfoyproblem
Summary: A single moment holds different meaning for three individuals, three different kinds of longing viewed through a simple window in Lestallum.





	1. Glimpses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gladio uses his excellent talent of misconstrueing entire situations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is by thepottermalfoyproblem (aka goldberry)

He saw it through the window.

Just a glimpse, but it was enough to send Gladio into a mild panic, backing away from the door he had been about to open. He landed against the wall instead, one hand pressed tightly against his mouth to stifle his suddenly ragged breathing.

Beyond the door lay Ignis’s apartment, one he had inhabited since they had taken up refuge in Lestallum. Once, Gladio would have called it his apartment too, though considering he was never home he was uncertain if he could still lay claim to the space.

Or even to his husband of nearly five years.

He hadn’t told Ignis he was coming home, wanting to surprise his husband with his presence. It had taken weeks to work up the courage, weeks to drag himself out of the pit of self-loathing that had consumed him after their last fight. He’d run out like a coward, unable to articulate why he so desperately needed Ignis to be safe.

And now he stood outside his old apartment, chest heaving and eyes blinking back tears as the image he had seen seared its way into his memory.

Gladio had known that Prompto was staying at the apartment now, helping Ignis with things he needed sight to accomplish. But he hadn’t been prepared to see the way Prompto was looking at Ignis in that moment, open and unguarded, expression speaking volumes. Hadn’t been prepared for the domestic way that the younger man leaned over the back of the couch, handing Ignis a steaming cup of coffee, a fond smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Or for the way that Ignis accepted the coffee, unerringly like the duo had done this a thousand times. They probably had.

In his heart, Gladio had always known he wasn’t enough for Ignis. He was too rough around the edges, run ragged by events so far out of his control he couldn’t even begin to see the end of them. They had married young, Noctis’s path as chosen king still an abstract concept yet linking them together with a bond strong as iron. Without Noctis… everything had begun to fall apart. Maybe even before then, when Ignis’s sight had been stripped from him.

They were just too different now. Ignis deserved someone who could be there for him. Someone who wouldn’t run off into the wilds to hunt at the slightest provocation. Someone who could care for him without smothering him.

Someone like Prompto.

Regaining some of his composure, the hunter (not a shield, not anymore) peered through the window again. Ignis had put in headphones, listening to something on his phone. Most likely dictated reports generated by the provisional council or Hunter HQ. Across the room, Prompto leaned over a low table, fiddling with one of his many projects. After a moment he held it up to the light of his work lamp, glancing over his shoulder at Ignis to say something. The adviser’s shoulders shook with laughter as he shook his head at Prompto. The other man sighed dramatically, but the fond, tender look never left his eyes.

It was enough to break Gladio’s heart all over again. Ignis definitely deserved better, and it looked like he had it.

All this Gladio saw through the window, but he didn’t see Ignis’s lonely, disappointed face as he listened to Gladio turn and walk away.


	2. Echoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written by ishery. Bless her ability to get in Ignis's head, because Goldberry sure cannot XD

He remembered how the door frame shook with the ferocity with which Gladio had slammed it. 

After that, every noise was deafening. 

Each new sound grating against him and reminding him of the fact that there hadn't been this much silence before. The simplest things felt like thunderclaps. It would ease, he kept reminding himself. Once they resolved it all… it wouldn't feel quite so stifling anymore. 

It had taken days for him to realize that his temperamental idiot of a spouse wasn't coming back… at least not anytime soon. Days of jumping at the small sounds, days of realizing that more than anything else now he hated being alone. 

Their home echoed in his absence. 

Days became a week, then two… and he couldn't take it any longer. Prompto had filled the gap, shame as it had been to say it. A friend in a common space, chattering and clicking away at whatever it was that he was working on. It helped, but it was a far cry from what he'd truly wanted. 

Prompto had no luck with their poorly organized record collection, and even less so the record player itself. He'd ultimately given up asking after the second time he had run worried fingers over the edge of a surface, hoping the gouge he expected to be there was a mistake. They… made due in other ways. Instead, mp3 versions on his phone, headphones he hadn't used in quite a few years (and still wasn't sure how they'd survived all the various travels they'd been on) became his solace and for a while… it worked. 

The ache lingered, however. Late in the evenings, after Prompto had found his way to the guest room, their home still echoed. 

Another week, then days more. Prompto had altogether stopped bothering to leave, save to get things from his own apartment or to run an errand. It was welcome, familiar. A new routine formed and while the echo remained a new set of sounds did their best to fill the spaces. Late in the night, he worried - what would happen when Gladio returned to him, what would come of it all? Would the walls echo with lingering traces of nights like this? 

It's something he chose not to think on often. No, he barely thought on it at all. More than he'd care to admit, Prompto had learned when his thoughts wander down darker paths. He hated that Prompto also saw it as his duty to pull him from that towards whatever thing he was busying himself with. Since when had their roles changed so very much? It was an answer he knew. 

The smell of coffee filled the air and wrapped into all the spaces he wished would remain as warm as the drink itself. Another long evening of reports to review and… 

A click. 

An imperceptible small click at the door, and his breath stopped in his chest. He tilted his head, strained for the creak of the door opening, but nothing. A soft thump on the outside wall and then Prompto grabbed his attention instead with some ludicrous remark about a piece of his work that has him laughing in spite of himself. 

He took a breath, waited to hear the noise again, hoping desperately that it hadn't been his imagination. That perhaps this time, the door would open. That the empty spaces would be filled again and they could sort out everything else that had been left in between. 

But the minute passes and so does the hope, so tenuously held that it crumbled as he sighed, shoulders slumping with the motion. It had been foolish, after all. To think something that small could signal the return of someone quite the opposite. But he had hoped… 

And even though his home was far from empty, he's reminded again of just how loud it echoed.


	3. Heartbeats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto has a problem and it's called caring way too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is by thepottermalfoyproblem (aka goldberry)

Prompto had always known his heart would get him in trouble someday. He loved too easily and too quickly, rushing headlong into friendships with no clear knowledge if they were driven by an urge to be merely friends or something far more dear.

To be honest, he’d made many friends this way over the years and it hadn’t gotten him into trouble… until now. Until he stood in the kitchen of his two remaining best friends, fighting the wild beating of his traitor heart as he poured two cups of simple, ordinary coffee. Until he fell hopelessly for the one person in the world he certainly could never have.

After his latest row with Gladio, Ignis had invited Prompto into his apartment, into his life really, to fill the utter silence Gladio had left behind. Prompto had to admit he too had been lonely in his sparse Lestallum apartment, so he was grateful for Ignis’s company. He could work on his tech projects quietly, yet still have someone to turn and talk to if he needed to reassure himself that he wasn’t alone in the endless night.

Somehow, over the last few months that he’d spent in his friends’ home, the feelings that had always floated in the back of his mind had surged forward with new strength. Prompto had thought his crushes on Ignis and Gladio well and truely squashed years ago when he found out they were married, and the feelings had rerouted themselves into the strongest and most lasting of friendships. Apparently his crush on Ignis wasn’t as gone as he had hoped.

He set the carafe (still half-full of coffee) back into the coffee-maker and leaned against the counter for a moment, closing his eyes tight and gripping the edge of the ancient tile with enough force that his knuckles went white. Biting his lip he willed his aching heart to stop pounding, certain Ignis would be able to hear it and ask him what the matter was.

He wasn’t sure he could bear the question.

When he finally thought he could approach Ignis without his heartbeat giving him away, he picked up the coffee and crossed to the sofa where the man sat listening to reports. He took one earbud out as Prompto approached, a small smile and a quiet “thank you” threatening to make Prompto’s heartrate spike again. Knowing Ignis couldn’t see how soft his responding smile was… was kind of a relief. No one had to know how low he’d fallen to be pining after a taken man, even one with a vanished husband.

After handing the coffee off, making sure that his hands did not brush against Ignis’s even though they itched with the urge to caress his fingers, Prompto turned to his workbench. He’d been fiddling with some radio receivers, trying to see if he could expand their range to make up for towers lost to the daemon wilds. Amazing the talents you pick up when the end of world is literally hanging over your head.

Chuckling to himself, Prompto turned to observe this notion out loud to Ignis. His words brought a chuckle, but Ignis’s laugh did nothing to erase the look of grief that had hung over his face seconds before. Prompto wondered what might have caused such a look, and longed to reach out and smooth the grief from Ignis’s face.

His eyes flicked across the room, looking for a possible source for Ignis’s grief, knowing that it was likely a memory of Gladio and nothing he could ever hope to fix. But as his gaze slid past the front door, he saw movement out the window set into the wall beside it and his heart leapt into his throat.

What if Gladio had come home at last? Would Ignis no longer need to keep Prompto around? He didn’t know if he could bear going back to his small, lonely apartment that smelled mostly of gun oil and regret. Prompto knew he should go to the door and check, but he couldn’t seem to make his feet move across the worn wooden floor. Instead he watched as the shadow on the other side of the window moved away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ignis’s shoulders slump as he sighed and went back to his reports.

For what seemed like the millionth time, Prompto allowed himself to imagine a few selfish moments of peaceful domesticity and cursed his traitor heart.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a larger OT3 collab project between thepottermalfoyproblem and ishery! Stay tuned for more domestic angst.


End file.
